Boogie Up the River

by Mark Wallington

  At first all I was aware of was the growl of a powerful engine held on a leash. Then I was hit by a vast shadow and every creature in the vicinity dived for cover. A series of waves slapped against Maegan and leapt over her side and she bucked and smacked against the bank. The kettle fell off the stove, my hat fell in the water and I looked up to see a shining glass and plastic construction covered in antennae. It was the size of a cross-Channel car ferry and travelled through the water with its chin in the air. Along the bow was written the name Midnight Rider II.

  I’d heard about these boats – the brochures called them cruisers, their critics called them Gin Palaces, a builder would have called them maisonettes. I’d imagined them to be as splendid as this, but never as sinister. Midnight Rider II was taller than she was long. She was fitted with radar and with lifeboats and everything attached to her sparkled to the extent that she dazzled oncoming traffic. On the deck in the conning tower were a woman in a swimsuit, and a man with mirror sunglasses. The boat was presumably on automatic pilot for no one was at the wheel, but then I couldn’t see a wheel, just these two walking around the deck holding coils of rope and bumping into each other. They looked at me and waved and I sort of waved back and that was my mistake. Midnight Rider II slipped round the bend of the river and out of sight among the trees, but minutes later she returned and after much manoeuvring and general destruction of the environment and me – but mostly me – she moored next to me – but mostly on top of me.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the captain. ‘Didn’t disturb you did we? I wasn’t too sure if this was public at first, but since you were here, well . . .’

  From the saloon I could hear the television on.

  ‘Funny-looking boat you’ve got there,’ he went on. ‘It’s . . . it’s not got a motor, has it?’

  ‘It’s a camping skiff. It’s a hundred years old. It’s got oars – I mean sculls.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Mine was built in 1986. It’s got all sorts of things. It’s got a fire extinguisher for instance. Reception is lousy on the telly though. Where are you going?’

  ‘The source.’

  ‘Which way’s that?’

  I pointed towards Slough.

  ‘I never go very far upstream. We live in Walton. We just got this to potter about in. TV reception gets bad upstream. The Crystal Palace signal gets weak round the Cotswolds, see. We had a booster put up in our area to reconvert the frequency. You need a different aerial but it’s worth it.’

  A funny-looking bird swam up to us. It was orange and white and smaller than a duck. It had the worst haircut of any bird I’d ever seen.

  ‘I’ve seen a few of those over the years. You know what they are?’ said the captain of Midnight Rider II.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Neither do I. It’s not a swan, that’s for sure.’

  ‘No, it’s not a swan.’

  ‘No.’

  We looked at the bird for a while. There were probably no two less well-versed watermen on the river that morning. I dug out my bird book and identified the creature as a great crested grebe.

  ‘It’s a great crested grebe,’ I said.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘With its legs situated under its tail the great crested grebe is ungainly and rarely seen on land, but supreme under water,’ I read.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Its nest is usually a floating raft of vegetation. Both sexes incubate the eggs.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  A little black bird with a patch on its head appeared on the scene. I identified it as a coot or a moorhen. When the grebe saw it, it thumped its head in.

  ‘That was unpleasant,’ said the captain of Midnight Rider II. Then he looked at his watch and called out to his wife: ‘Are those Yorkshires ready yet? The film’s nearly started.’

  She came to the hatch and said: ‘Alan, come here a minute. There’s a strange dog in our saloon watching television.’

  I rowed – or rather sculled – on to Weybridge, a neat, smart, newly painted, traffic-light-controlled, streets-cleaned-every-night, bins-emptied-every-Thursday town with a W. H. Smith’s, a Boots, a Peter Dominic and a Benetton.

  This was my first riverside town and I was interested to see if, despite its suburban dormitory status, Weybridge had retained its former spirit as a commercial port. I walked up the high street looking for the one building where all travellers new to a town can go to hear the local news and meet the local folk – the supermarket.

  I swung a trolley round the aisles, loaded it with provisions, then joined checkout two and stood amongst suntanned mothers with their teenage daughters. I was hemmed in by talk of time-share apartments and contraception.

  We shuffled forward. Muzak from Doctor Zhivago filled every empty space. The man in front of me sneezed and his wife said: ‘Did you know that the strongest sneeze ever recorded was over a hundred miles an hour and had the power of a force-seven gale?’ At the front of the queue a customer was paying by cheque, the next paid by Access and the next by customer credit, for which forms were filled out in triplicate. The next customer had a price query, and the next was a friend of the checkout girl, Lorraine, and they chatted about their friend Dave who smashed up his dad’s Ford Granada on Tuesday. I was just getting the impression that Weybridge folk were a civil and patient lot, with a rustic quality belying their proximity to London, when suddenly the two nicely dressed women behind me cracked and a battle for position began. ‘I was here before you, you bitch!’ ‘Don’t call me a bitch, you slut!’ Mr Davis the manager went straight in and put up the Till Closed sign. We all scrummed down and I joined checkout four. With two people to go before me the till ran out of change and checkout girl Rachael sat there with her arms folded looking out of the window thinking of Mike, the lad with the long arms from dairy produce. The woman behind me who only had a tin of tuna fish and a sliced loaf in her basket said: ‘You wouldn’t mind if I go in front of you, would you? I’ve only got two items,’ but I didn’t even bother to turn round. I wasn’t going to be taken advantage of just because I was new in town. Besides, Mr Davis had come over with a bag of change and there was just an elderly man in front of me. But Rachael was giving him a rough ride; ‘You haven’t weighed your tomatoes have you?’ she barked at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You haven’t weighed your tomatoes!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go and weigh them!’ And she threw the things at him and sent him off. I moved into his space and smiled at her and she snarled back and walked off for a tea break. Julie took her place. She counted out her money, changed the cash-roll and was about to pull the first item out of my basket when she put her head in her hands and burst into tears. Everyone at checkout four just stood there looking at her. None of us had any idea how to comfort a supermarket checkout person. I think someone might have said: ‘There there!’ but then one of us spotted checkout three was open and we all scrummed down again. Mr Davis moved in and led Julie away. ‘I understand,’ he was saying. ‘But it’s like riding a horse. You’ve got to get right back in the saddle.’

  I had entered the supermarket a cool individual with the swagger of a man about to journey to the source of a great river. I walked back to the boat a seething, sweating wreck with an in-depth knowledge of life in Weybridge and a desire to kick innocent animals. Boogie, fortunately, is very understanding in situations like this. When he sees me in this state he gives me his ‘it’s all right; I know what you’re going through’ look. ‘You’re all pent up and you want to kick me, don’t you? Well you go right ahead if it makes you feel better. You relieve your stress on my kidneys, that’s what I’m here for. Go ahead, kick the dog, I enjoy it really.’ And I feel suddenly full of remorse and think about people in the world less fortunate than myself, and I bend down and stroke him and pat him on the head and end up giving him a packet of biscuits.

  We sculled through the afternoon. A policeman in a patrol boat gave a ‘good for you’ wave. A work party on a British Waterways B
oard launch whistled at me and held up their cups of tea in an ‘all the best’ gesture. A man sitting on his lawn in front of a bungalow by a sign that said ‘private’ in italics, waved at me and probably considered inviting me in for a glass of champagne but then thought better of it.

  My real friends though were the lock-keepers, and it was clear after only a day on the river that they were all friendly, helpful and good-humoured, and didn’t mind me smashing into their gates. They’d just nod knowingly and admire Maegan, and when I asked them if they thought I’d get as far upstream as Cricklade, some would say: ‘Never! You’ll get dragged down by weed and the boat will break her back on the rocks and your oars will snap in the narrows and the local farmers will shoot you; you’d be a fool to even think about it.’ While others would say: ‘Of course you’ll make it, no trouble.’ They all lived on islands in the most idyllic cottages and unlike most people in jobs where you get to wear a hat they weren’t inclined to make comments like: ‘You can’t leave that here!’ or ‘That’s what you think!’ or ‘Don’t you understand plain English!?’ If they wanted to make you aware of something they did it diplomatically, in just the way the keeper at Shepperton lock did to a blue-haired woman in a little cabin cruiser. She was busy at her stove as her boat rose up the chamber. The lock-keeper bent down and said: ‘Just a word of friendly advice, Madam, but I wouldn’t use the stove whilst you’re in the lock as there can be a build-up of petrol fumes and there’s a good chance that you and your little boat will be blown to bits.’

  That evening I reached the village of Laleham. Racing sculls whizzed around me like wasps and I suddenly felt tired. I felt as though I’d travelled fifty miles, which is the feeling a beginner gets from having travelled only seven. A grassy bank in front of a riverside house was the ideal spot to moor for the night and I tied up and rolled out the canvas. Immediately a lawnmower of the kind popularized by cricket groundsmen came hurtling towards me. At the controls was a man with a frenzied look. Grass cuttings flew in all directions as he burned a trail in the lawn to my boat.

  ‘Don’t even think about mooring there!’ he said.

  ‘. . .’

  ‘Can’t you read?’ And he pointed to a sign stuck in the ground a few yards away on which nothing was written.

  ‘. . .’

  ‘Public mooring stops there.’

  On the other side of the signpost the words Public Mooring were indeed written. He wanted me to move Maegan six feet downstream, a manoeuvre which owing to my poor technique took fifteen minutes, and involved an inconvenience factor which Boogie and I made the most of with looks of absolute fatigue and despair. By the time I’d re-moored, the man on the lawnmower was ridden with guilt. ‘Sorry about all this, old chap,’ he said, ‘but we can’t be too careful, you know? Here, throw me your rope and I’ll tie you up. Got water have you? How about dog food? We can let you have a can if you’re out. There’s a pub in the village by the way. Nice pub – does a good selection of baked potatoes with a variety of fillings, mushroom and sour cream, chilli and cheese, that sort of job. Peaceful sort of village, Laleham. Nothing of earth-shattering importance has ever happened here; it’s never appeared on the Nine O’clock News or anything. Although there was a near miss between a British Caledonian 737 and a Cessna light aircraft once which would have focused world attention on us had they hit. Anyway . . .’

  I went to call Jennifer. I tried her home, her office and her car and found her at her health club. She said: ‘Where are you? You sound miles away.’

  ‘I’m in Laleham.’

  ‘Laleham! That’s where Matthew Arnold came from! He’s buried by the local church. “Life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames.”’

  ‘Listen, meet me in Windsor tomorrow evening, on the bridge at seven.’

  ‘I’ll be there. I should be back from Paris by then.’

  ‘Paris!’

  ‘Just for the day. It’s business.’

  ‘Jennifer! You can’t behave like this.’

  Boogie started barking at the phone box at this point.

  ‘What’s that barking?’

  ‘I’ve got to go. The churchyard is closing. Be on the bridge tomorrow. I’ll tell you all about Matthew Arnold’s grave.’

  I found the Arnold family plot near the church door. Children ran about between the mounds of earth. I was surrounded by screams and flintstone. The sun was setting and I was amazed. Amazed because I was standing in Laleham, a village I’d never heard of before and would never have had any reason to come to, and yet I was having a moment I knew I’d never forget. I felt giddy.

  I went into a pub; it was almost empty. The barman said: ‘It’s always quiet on a Friday.’ I bought some beer and before I’d got the glass to my lips I began to feel giddy again. Then the room began to sway. I bought some potato and mint flavoured crisps and went out into the garden, and the garden was swaying too.

  Boogie went walkabout and managed to score a chilliburger, a piece of garlic bread, some scampi and some cold cuts. A woman with a steak sandwich gave him half, and her man said ‘What are you doing? I’d have had that!’

  ‘The dog’s got that look about him,’ she said.

  ‘You gave a steak sandwich to a dog. I don’t believe it! It’s not even our dog!’

  Then the table began to sway, then Laleham began to sway. I left my drink and returned to the boat and only then when I was back on water did I feel at ease. I diagnosed I had landsickness. The treatment? An evening with Delia Smith.

  I sat in the lamplight with Delia Smith’s One is Fun! cookbook in one hand and a pan full of piquant liver with a sherry sauce in the other. It tasted wonderful. Afterwards I lay in the dark in my sleeping bag as water lapped at Maegan and I felt I knew Delia Smith far better than I had before. It’s an amazing thing, travel.

  Next morning as I sat on the bank trying to untie the impossible knots I’d tied with such ease the night before, the driver of a canary-yellow cruiser called Hesnotin came to visit. He stood next to me and said nothing.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Ten past nine. Breakfast telly has just finished.’ He scrunched up his face, sniffed, scratched his stomach and made his eyebrows jump and said: ‘That weatherman, that effeminate fella – not that I’ve anything against effeminate sorts – but anyway, that weatherman with the permed hair, he just said it’s going to thunder and lightning. Glad I’m not in a rowing boat. Which way are you going?’

  ‘Upstream.’

  ‘River’s moving faster today. Glad I’m not going upstream.’

  I climbed back into my boat and set off and my cereal spoon dropped over the side. The river certainly didn’t feel faster today, in fact it felt a lot easier. Maybe I was getting the hang of this sculling business. Maybe one day was all I needed to get fit. Maybe I felt like this because I was going the wrong way.

  This was a bad mistake. For a brief moment I’d experienced how much easier it was going downstream.

  For some folk Staines is the ideal holiday resort. For Boogie – who is content the minute he sees a pedestrian precinct or an NCP to play in, and who likes underpasses and bypasses and flyovers, and has a soft spot for No Entry Except For Access signs – it was the perfect spot. Likewise for a number of humans moored in their shiny launches outside the Swan. Launches were a step down from cruisers. They were all rather featureless, but this was probably because they were all hired from the company that monopolized the market. Some were dinky, others were modelled on the whale, but they were all uniformly painted in blue and white and their names all had the prefix Maid: Maid Lucilla, Maid Yvonne, Maid Natasha. They were like watertight caravans and were crewed by very friendly people in thick pullovers who all waved as I sculled past and called out greetings of the ‘it’s all right for the dog, eh?’ and, ‘it’s a dog’s life isn’t it?’ or ‘get the dog to do some work, I should’ or ‘dog’s got the right idea, hasn’t he?’ variety.

  A number were moored by the London Stone, the point whe
re, before the the river was locked, the reach of the tide ended. The date on the stone is 1285, although the real model was removed to a museum a number of years ago to protect it from vandals. A plastic replica now stands in its place, and that too is surrounded by bars. When that’s smashed up they’ll probably pin up a photograph of the monument and place an armed guard on it. The stone was the one-time marker of the western limit of the City of London on the Thames, an honour which now unofficially belongs to the M25 that crosses the river a few hundred yards upstream. A motorway is harder to vandalize than an historic monument but one lad was having a go at it as I passed. He was under the bridge scrawling some grafitti on the concrete slabs. He saw me coming and shoved his chalk in his pocket.

  As we slipped into the shadow of the motorway the concrete rumbled, and the bridge created an echo like a cave. I could hear the drops of water drip from my sculls. The lad nodded at me and looked nervous and said: ‘I’m sheltering, I am.’

  ‘It’s not raining.’

  ‘That’s what you think. Dog’s got the right idea, eh? How old is he?’

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘How old is that for a dog?’

  ‘Er . . . ten.’

  I was travelling slowly enough to have conversations of this nature. In fact I was travelling ridiculously slowly – a mile an hour was all I was managing. Even taking into account my heading against the current this was disappointing, and when a woman pushing a pram along the towpath overtook me I slumped and said: ‘I want to know why you’re pushing a pram and you’re overtaking me?’ And she stopped, shook her head and said: ‘Because you’re not leaning back, you’re not feathering your blades, you’re not keeping out of the main current, your knees aren’t together and your boat’s not balanced, that’s why.’

  For the rest of the morning I tried to correct these faults, although the last of them I was unable to do anything about, for the balance of the boat was dependent on the items within it remaining still, and one of these items was Boogie. As he grew to trust Maegan a little more he experimented, leaning over the side until he caught his reflection in the water. This so frightened him he’d lurch to the other side and the boat would follow. He also did a nice line in running from bow to stern whenever another boat passed with a dog on it, and so for most of the time Maegan, despite sitting on a flat calm of a river, was behaving as though caught in her own Bermuda Triangle of agitation.